


Sing Me to Sleep

by Laststopbeforemadness



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Human Castiel, Insomnia, M/M, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-19
Updated: 2016-03-19
Packaged: 2018-05-27 18:44:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6295522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laststopbeforemadness/pseuds/Laststopbeforemadness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Humanity is giving Castiel a hard time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sing Me to Sleep

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this](https://archiveofourown.org/works/182449) work. I doubt I can do it justice, but I wanted to try.

Castiel wakes with a jolt. He gasps for breath as he takes in his surroundings. It's gone, it's gone, it's over. He's safe. They’re all safe.

He’s in his bed, in the bunker. Not hurting, not dying, not falling.

Safe.

His legs are tangled in the sheets and the fabric clings to his sweaty skin. He shakes them off and just breathes for a while but he doesn’t calm down. Fear still claws at his thoughts and tears fall down his face. 

He’s had these nightmares a lot recently. Waking up screaming and terrified, or with a heavy sense of guilt or hurt or loss. Flexing limbs that are no longer there, trying to sake off the he phantom pain in his back. Memories flashing under his eyelids of the leviathan coursing through his veins. Or Naomi’s re-education. Or a blade in his hands, countless bodies on the floor, all wearing Dean’s face. 

The room is dark. The walls that usually feel safe and welcoming are now constrictive and threatening. Towering over him, making him feel tiny and alone. He was great once. He could have blown these walls out with just a thought. He had no need for such a simple thing as sleep. 

But he’s not great anymore. Now he’s diminutive, insignificant and hurt. Just a fraction of what he once was. Holding on to the last flickering ember of who he is, trying to put the pieces of himself back together. 

He won’t fall asleep again. Not for many hours. Not when his heart is still beating rapidly in his chest and every breath he takes comes fast and shallow. He never knew sleep was such a frail thing. Humans did it all the time. Closed their eyes and dreamt. Woke up rested enough to continue living. 

For him, sleep is distant and fleeting. Always eluding his grasp when he reaches for it. Keeping him up for hours, even days. Restless and shifting. 

Sleep comes when he wants it the least. When he’s staying up researching for hours, eyes growing heavy and thoughts turning slow. Jolting awake by the feeling of his head falling down towards the table. Or sitting in the impala watching a suspect for something to confirm their suspicions of a secret monstrous identity. Dean having to wake him up when something happens and accusing him of slacking on the job.

Going to bed does not hold the promise of rest. More than anything it’s a forced period of useless inactivity. Where he has to stay still in bed to have a chance to fall asleep but sleep doesn’t come. At least never easily. If it does, it comes slowly and reluctantly. After hours of waiting he finds some resemblance of peace only to wake up a few hours later, with his throat raw from screaming and limbs heavy with sorrow. Even more exhausted than he was when he went to bed. 

Dean found him like that once. Heard him crying and found him curled up in a corner. Shaking to his core and fighting for breath as he sobbed. Dean had held him there. Curled up around him without a word. Helped him calm down and then wiped away his tears as well as a few of his own. 

Dean knows how to make it better. He can help.

Castiel gets up and leaves his room for the bunker hallway. The light outside is dim but still feels overwhelming compared to the darkness of his room. He feels rubbed raw. Every breath is churning in his lungs. His body feels hollow and his chest is aching. A feeling that leaves him worried he might shatter at the smallest contact. 

He always knew humans where delicate. He’s understood it from the very beginning, but the extent of it never really dawned on him until he experienced it himself.

His too-long pajama pants sway around his legs when he walks. He gets to Dean’s bedroom door and it slides easily on it’s hinges when he pushes it open.

He’s seen Dean sleep so many times before. Watched over him or walked in his dreams. Dean always slept with ease. Swiftly falling down into the pool of unconsciousness, but sleeping light enough to wake quickly if startled. 

He is stretched out on his stomach. One arm hugging the pillow under his head and the other flung over the edge of the bed. Legs stretched, one naked calf sticking out from under the covers. 

Castiel can’t see Dean’s soul anymore. The mesmerizing swirl of kindness and love that Castiel has come to love so deeply. While sleeping, it always looked so happy and content in a way Dean barely ever dared to express when his was awake. Castiel misses seeing it so much it feels like he’s lost a part of his senses. Like he’s half blind now.

‘Dean’ Castiel calls softly. 

He says it again, this time with a light nudge to the naked calf on the bed. Dean bolts and Castiel is suddenly faced with the muzzle of a gun before Dean realizes that there’s no imminent danger in the room. 

‘Cas?’ He says, it only takes that one syllable for his face and voice to soften. ‘What are you doing here?’ But then he takes in the red puffy eyes, the tear streaks and the trembling breaths. ’Nightmare?’. His voice is barely above a whisper. His fingers twitch, longing to reach out and hold but he keeps his arm in place, moving to put the gun away instead. 

Castiel nods. Feeling all the fear and worry start to seep out of him. ’You helped the last time’ He says in response to Dean’s first question. 

Dean doesn’t say anything. He just sits there, caught in indecision. Castiel is about to say that’s it’s okay, he can leave if Dean is uncomfortable when Dean moves. He shuffles back on the bed, making some space so Castiel can slide down beside him. 

He gets down under the covers and curls up close and wraps his arms around Dean’s warm chest. But Dean stiffens in his arms so he must have crossed a line somewhere. 

’A bit too much Cas. I don’t cuddle with guys.’ Dean says, voice strained and when Castiel looks up his face is clearly uncomfortable. 

Castiel doesn't understand what the shape of his body has to do with anything. He doesn’t think he would experience this any differently if Dean turned into a woman, or grew a tail or was a genderless creature of unknown species. 

He doesn’t mention the men he’s seen in Dean’s dreams. Convinced Dean will see it as less of a valid argument and more a breach of privacy. He knows that Dean is not comfortable with the fact that he’s attracted to men as well as women.

He wishes he could make Dean understand that the fences humanity has put up around sexuality and gender is idiotic. It would be straight out laughable if it wasn’t so sad. And that some people even have the audacity to say that it’s what God wants. If castiel’s father had been here to see it he would be utterly devastated. 

He also wants to say that this is nothing sexual and that he’s not a guy, but that last part is not really true anymore. 

Maybe he is a man now. He’s not an angel anymore so he’s human, but he doesn’t feel like a man. He just feels lost. He wants to say that humanity is exhausting and he doesn’t know what he’s doing. 

He says none of these things however. 

Instead he says ‘Oh’ and fails miserably when he tries to keep the disappointment from seeping into his voice. 

He starts to move away to stay on the empty side of the bed but a hand lands on his back, keeping him still. It’s hesitant and careful as if handling a agitated animal. Castiel is not certain if that animal is him or Dean right now. 

‘Fine. Fine, whatever. Just… ‘ Dean’s voice trails off. He opens and closes his mouth wordlessly. Trying to find something he can allow himself to say.‘It’s fine’ He repeats to the silence of the room. 

Castiel can feel Dean starting to relax in his arms and dares move his head closer to Dean’s sternum and curl his fingers in the back of his t-shirt. Dean’s arms tentatively move from his sides to wrap around Castiel’s back and his chin slowly comes to rests agains the top of Castiel’s head. ‘You can stay.’ He mumbles into the soft strands of dark hair. 

There in Dean’s arms, Castiel melts.    


He’s seen so much evil. So much hatred and anger and betrayal. He’s wondered more than once how this world can be just. He’s seen good men get hurt and betrayed and killed and he’s done a great deal of bad things himself.

Dean has been with him through it all. Through heaven and hell and purgatory. through the pain and the fall and the heartbreak. They’ve given each other a few scars too, and they’ve left and betrayed and hurt. But they’ve always come back. They have forgiven and made peace. 

It’s moments like these that convince him that, yes, this world can be a dark place. Where bad things fester in the shadows and people have so many different ways to hurt each other. 

But there’s also kindness, hope, trust, friendship and love. It might take some work, some time and some patience. It may never grow on it’s own but if you let it, it can thrive and with such a simple thing as ’ _you can stay_ ’, the good can outweigh the bad.  


Just before sleep takes him, Castiel thinks for a moment, that he’s never felt bigger. 


End file.
